The source code underlying many complex applications may comprise tens of thousands of files, with very large numbers of potential invocations or calls between the code represented in the different files. Auditors of the source code (e.g., individuals assigned the task of identifying potential security flaws), as well as new developers assigned to the application, may therefore face a steep learning curve. Even experienced developers involved in designing and coding the application may understand only a small part of the code well, typically limited to a small part of the code that the developers interact with regularly.
With respect to a goal of obtaining a thorough understanding of the common code paths of a sophisticated application such as a database management system, a multi-tier web-based application and the like, existing source code analysis tools, debuggers and integrated development environments (IDEs) may be insufficient for a variety of reasons. Such reasons may include, among others, an inability to quickly narrow down the parts of the code that are most relevant, the imprecision and incompleteness of the analysis provided (for example, with respect to function pointers, which may be used quite frequently in some programs), and/or burdensome configuration requirements. Providing easy-to-use automated tools or services that can efficiently provide accurate insights into source code representing commonly-used flows of application logic remains a non-trivial technical challenge.